Three Chords and Some Hard Questions

By Richard Walters These are arguably the most difficult and frightening times within memory to be an American citizen. Not since the days of Kent State have we confronted so disturbing a landscape, in which our role as citizens is so much in question, or in which our moral compass seems to have been misplaced along with our cell phones. For the current crop of middle-agers, the political context of that time, thirty or forty years ago, was much simpler, much more comprehensible. There was one big issue (the war), one big bad guy (the government), and one big solution (love one another/give peace a chance/power to the people). It wasn’t so much a question of what should be done, as much as what shouldn’t: stop the war, and the rest would fall into place. Today, though, the problem is that no clear dragon presents itself for beheading. Rather, we confront a wearying mass of issues with no apparent solution, until a single galvanizing event, the Trade Center tragedy, is offered to us as a focal point. With it we are given “them” to hate and blame it on, and our government embarks on its response abroad, with wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, and domestically, with the PATRIOT Act, electronic surveillance on an unsurpassed scale, suspension of civil rights, and the death penalty at every turn. Questioning the government’s leadership has become unpatriotic in the eyes of many, and anything less than unqualified support for the wars has become nearly treasonous. Where have all the voices gone? Against this backdrop, the voices of protest and activism in popular music are largely silent. Unlike the days of the Great Folk Scare, and the politicization of rock in the 70s, today we hear virtually nothing of questions or doubts in the musical media. The amalgam of Clear Channel/Sony/Dreamworks and other media powerhouse corporations has provided a platform on today’s focus-group formula radio for such performers as Toby Keith and Darryl Worley, both embarrassingly right wing. The difference between the two, both mainstream country chart toppers, is merely stylistic — Worley’s maudlin, jingoistic sycophancy for anything in desert camouflage, and Keith’s redneck, bullying “we’ll plant a boot in your ass” aggression. As a friend recently observed, “The lines between Country Music Television, NASCAR and the WWF are getting pretty blurry, even when I haven’t been drinking.” He could have thrown Fox “News” and “reality television” into the mix as well. So what do we have for voices, not even on the left, but simply other than the hard right? Well, there’s Bruce Cockburn, doomed however unjustly to being typecast as incessantly beating the drum about the Third World. There’s Ani deFranco, with her (some would say) over-shared personal growth. And then there’s Steve Earle. Enter Steve Earle. For those who have been locked away in a monastery for the last few years, Steve Earle is quite possibly the finest songwriter at work in popular music today, and certainly the most controversial. In September […]

The Bad Plus

By Jeremy Saperstein The Bad Plus These Are The Vistas Columbia www.thebadplus.com Although it could be easily dismissed as a calculated and cynical move, I find it hard to dislike any band that presents jazz-trio covers of Nirvana’s über-punk anthem “Smells Like Teen Spirit” and Blondie’s “Heart Of Glass”, especially one who does them as well The Bad Plus. Yep, it would be easy, but the Bad Plus have the audacity to be better than hack musicians trying to milk the last drops dry from alterna-madness. Really, all the trio (Reid Anderson on bass, Ethan Iverson on piano, David King on drums) is doing is to continue in the tradition of jazzbos from the 40s and 50s, who would put their own stamp on popular songs of the day (John Coltrane’s take on “My Favorite Things” comes to my mind, for example). Indeed, there are some other fine songs on this disc, like the airy “Keep The Bugs Off Your Glass And The Bears Of Your Ass” (which actually made me think of the open road even before I read the C.B.-inspired title) and “1972 Bronze Medalist” (which evokes weird visions of Peanuts characters competing in the Munich Olympics). The Bad Plus have made a daring bid. Time will tell if they can back it up. I’m hoping they can.

Dreaming on Midsummer Nights

By Ken Morgan THE FIRST DECADE: The Unsinkable Molly Brown…Guys and Dolls…Fiddler On The Roof… Brigadoon… Oliver… West Side Story… No, No Nanette… On The Town… South Pacific… Anything Goes… It’s not the oldest youth theater company in America. It’s not the biggest. But there is nothing else quite like it anywhere. Most people would be surprised to discover Manitowoc, Wisconsin is ripe with a thriving art scene. With a population of only 35,000, Manitowoc boasts an unusual level of diversity in both industry and arts. The Rahr-West Museum is a venue for all genres, there are two dinner theaters nearby, and there’s the Masquers Little Theater, now in its 72nd year. A Lyceum Circuit-era theater serves as a venue for both local and touring productions. But it’s the Peter Quince Performance Company that truly stands out. Founded in 1969 by two stage struck youths, the company produces one musical every summer and, for 35 years, has been managed by the local youth involved in the productions. While children as young as seven have worked there, the age requirements — originally 13 to 21, now up to 23 — mean adults have had little to do with the success of the company. It is perhaps America’s only true youth theater. THE SECOND DECADE: Bye Bye Birdie… Oklahoma!… Carousel… Dames at Sea… The Boy Friend… The Pajama Game… Gypsy… Grease… The Wizard Of Oz… Where’s Charlie… “The company adopted its name from a character in Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream,” according to Co-founder Reed Humphrey. “Peter Quince is a carpenter who organized an acting troupe to entertain for royalty. He worked under adverse conditions: none of the cast was professional, there was no rehearsal stage until shortly before the performance, and there were few props. The willingness to seek responsibility for what seems to be an impossible venture is the contagious spirit of Peter Quince and the real magic of theatre.” Stage Trek – Generations. At least one “Quincer” has gone on to act on Broadway, another is now a famous composer and one has even crossed to the other side as a theater critic; however most of the people work there for the love of performing and producing musical theater. Dropping in at rehearsal for the current production of Footloose, the enthusiasm of young people is infectious. Originally, productions took place at local schools. They now enjoy the main stage at the Capitol Civic Center. Technology not available in the 1970s has further improved production values. Shows are now miked. Boom boxes and a synthesizer are used as the cast snaps into the opening production number. The rehearsal hall at the Masonic Temple in Manitowoc trembles as the 20-plus voices of musical youths hit the notes both high and low. Sets and costumes are designed, built and crewed by the members. A full orchestra with brass, woodwind and percussion instruments fills the theater with sound. The local dance schools turn out top-notch choreographers —Milwaukee Ballet principal Amy Fote learned her […]

By Andrew Muchin The memory is nearly 40 years old, yet it’s vivid and intense: I’m seated with my father and grandfather in a wooden half-pew at the back of Anshe Poale Zedek Synagogue in Manitowoc. Both the men’s pews before me and the women’s to my right are filled with worshippers dressed in their best clothing. Every man wears a black skullcap. Every woman sports a fancy bonnet or has clipped a square of black lace to her sculpted hair. The worshippers recite and sing Hebrew prayers and chat in hushed tones. Even as a child, I know most of the 150 people who are gathered for a major Jewish holiday. My friends from religious school are seated with their parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins and even great-grandparents. And 20 of them are from my extended family, comprising four generations. The traditionally observant congregation is a true community, with all of the warm acceptance and occasional lack of privacy that the term implies. As a six-year-old, I don’t know much about Judaism, but seated with my people at the synagogue, the amber light from tall stained glass windows bathing the sanctuary, I feel part of something larger than myself. The demise of small town Jewish culture In those baby-boom years, Manitowoc was one of 14 small Wisconsin cities with a synagogue and active Jewish community. Just 25 years earlier, that number was 20. As the late attorney Leonard Loeb, a native of Watertown, once told me, “You used to be able to travel the entire state and never eat treif,” or non-kosher food. In my lifetime, a fragment of the Jewish people’s 4,000-year history — those active, optimistic times I remember so fondly in Manitowoc — has been replaced by a sense of semi-doom. These days, the entire Jewish community couldn’t fill two pews in the sanctuary. I’m part of the problem. I haven’t lived in Manitowoc since my family moved to Milwaukee in 1970. Like me, most of my religious school classmates have left. Meanwhile, the majority of the worshippers I recall have died. There’s little economic or Jewish communal rationale for young Jewish families to stay in Manitowoc or move in. Manitowoc Jewry, like the communities in Fond du Lac and Sheboygan, is slowly dying of attrition. How soon those three populations will duplicate the demise of congregations in Arpin, Ashland, Hurley, Marinette, Stevens Point and Superior is not clear, but the handwriting is on the wall, to paraphrase Hebrew scripture (Daniel 5:5). A past filled with colorful characters Small-town Wisconsin’s Jewish communities — which produced Harry Houdini (maybe the most famous man of his time), writer Edna Ferber, State Treasurer Solomon Levitan, Major League outfielder Morrie Arnovich, Green Bay Packers co-founder Nate Abrams, Sen. Russell Feingold (D-Wis.); several rabbis; and many of the state’s most important industrialists — are no longer a staple of the Badger State. I may be front-man for a statewide Jewish history project, but I’m far from Manitowoc’s most interesting or influential […]

The Negro Problem

By Jeremy Saperstein Let’s start with the name: it’s meant as a knowing jibe — something to make politically-correctoids bristle. It oughta make you feel better that leader Stew is, indeed, black — and he’s making some of the finest literate and culturally-aware power-psychedelic-pop I’ve ever heard. The disc is like some sort of hideous hybrid of the every unique artist you care to name (to namecheck: I hear echoes of Charles Mingus, Sly Stone, Brian Wilson, Syd Barrett, Arthur Lee, Ennio Morricone, Roy Wood, John Fred and Burt Bacharach – and that’s just in the two songs that close the album! [“Bong Song” and “Bermuda Love Triangle”]) Despite the name, race is no issue within the grooves of the record, which features tongue-in-cheek references to records that have come before (“If London calls/just say I’ve stepped away” from “Watering Hole”), obscure pop-culture icons (“I’m Sebastian Cabot in your dreams/I’m Sebastian Cabot — what’s that mean?” from “I’m Sebastian Cabot”) and so much more — all in meticulously clever lyrics that continue to unfold through repeated listenings. Smile Records

Good for What Ales You

By John Hughes Cattail Ale, a Wisconsin-style mild ale, is Lakefront Brewery’s first release of a year-round beer in six years. “The Cattail Ale is a special formula we’ve been working on for a while to reflect a style of ale indigenous to Wisconsin,” says Russ Klisch, president of Lakefront Brewery. “We recognized the demand for a handcrafted mild ale in our lineup to appeal to wider audiences.” He added that Cattail is now second in overall sales, just behind Riverwest Stein, and the most popular beer on the tour. “The beer is a mild ale. When people come to a tour, they’re not all beer fanatics. People who just like to enjoy a beer like Cattail a lot. Real beer enthusiasts might not find it as flavorful.” Russ’s own favorite brews are Eastside Dark and Cream City Pale Ale. But, he adds “I find myself drinking a lot of it at home. It’s a very drinkable beer.” The recipe is a true craft ale brewed with only water, yeast, hops and malted barley, in keeping with the Bavarian Purity Law of 1516. The ale will be available only in Milwaukee and Waukesha counties until inventories are built to allow wider-ranging sales. Lakefront Brewery, established in 1987, makes handcrafted beers such as Riverwest Stein, East Side Dark, Cream City Pale Ale and Klisch Pilsner, as well as specialty brews such as Pumpkin Beer, Holiday Spice, Belgian White, Oktoberbest and Extra Special Bitter (ESB), and a non-alcoholic Golden Maple Root Beer. Its’ rental hall is also noted for some of the more memorable parties here in town. At great sacrifice to themselves, we had some VITAL SOURCE staffers sample Cattail Ale. Below, their heroically acquired dispatches. John Hughes, Staff Writer I am a zealous devotee of Lakefront Brewery’s Riverwest Stein, East Side Dark, Fuel CafÈ Stout, and Cream City Pale Ale beers. The newly available Cattail Ale will not be supplanting them anytime soon. It is an excellently crafted, flavorful, lightweight beer. I find it good but overshadowed by its siblings. It will have a sweet niche as a companion to an overbearing, gigantic hamburger and fries meal, or a massive Mexican dish, where you need some respite. Also, on a hot Milwaukee day, sitting in the shade of your backyard with this one, contemplating your sweetie, would make for a tasty afternoon. Four stars. Jeremy Saperstein, Pop Culture Editor Cattail Ale, the latest offering from Milwaukee’s Lakefront Brewery, is a great summer beer. The first sips I had were at a cookout, standing on someone’s driveway in the hot sun, and it went down smoothly — almost too smoothly. Only my strong sense of decorum kept from overserving myself and becoming, well, a charming and lovable drunk. Cattail Ale is a deep golden color in the glass and, unlike a lot of the microbrew hordes, doesn’t possess an annoyingly cloying sweetness — only a rich, malty flavor that makes me want more. Ken Morgan, Theater Columnist Picked up a twelve-pack, […]

The Stratford 4

By Jeremy Saperstein An activist San Francisco who combine an echoey, distorted sound with tight songwriting and boy-girl vocals? Nah, it couldn’t be! The Stratford 4 formed from the same roots as fave rockers Black Rebel Motorcycle Club, but give us a dreamier, poppier sound that’s reminiscent of the shoegazer bands of the 80s and 90s while never stooping to pure copying, gracefully entwining sinewy guitar leads with blast of fuzzed out rhythm. Others will hear suggestions of Hoboken’s sometime noise merchants in Yo La Tengo — probably owing more to the S4’s way with a pop tune and their lack of fear of atmospheric freakouts and loud, distorted guitars (the CD title is a good shorthand description of the contents). Jetset Records

By Raymond Johnson Although the Park East freeway spur is not yet completely demolished, it is already beginning to be hard to remember exactly what it the spur itself was like. The area is brighter and less foreboding. And with the new McKinley Ave. taking shape, a sense of concreteness and inevitability envelops the project. It is really going to happen. Milwaukee really is going to return this area to productive use after decades on the public dole. It is not too early then to ask (indeed, hopefully not too late), how will we remember this great wound inflicted on our city? As the scar slowly disappears, how will we memorialize those who sacrificed their homes and livelihoods for this freeway, those who stopped it short of the lake, and those who have pushed it back to Sixth Street? And finally, how will we teach our children what was done here, both so that they may learn from these mistakes and take inspiration from this battle to fight others looming on the horizon? Thus far, such remembering seems to have been all but forgotten. The model presented last November at City Hall was mostly about healing and repairing. While this is important, we must also remember. For a while, maybe decades, this likely will not be necessary. The newness of it all, the new streets, new buildings, new businesses, and new residents will be a constant reminder of the wastefulness of what once stood. Before then, and probably for a least a decade, the open space waiting to be filled with all this newness will be a reminder. No, the remembering will not be truly needed until much later, perhaps after the first new building expires its term of usefulness and is torn down. The piers: monolithic monuments to past mistakes. How about a monument? A monument to the destruction and eventual rebuilding of our city, one that matches that which occurred. The piers that once held up the spur are such a natural choice. Their scale exactly matching that which existed, they would be a perfect reminder of the Park East Freeway spur. Unfortunately most of these piers have already been razed. The best single one to have kept, on the median of Water St., has been torn down. This pier would have been a highly visible reminder, Water St. being such a prominent thoroughfare. There are only three others remaining – two in the Milwaukee River and one on the west side of 3rd St. All three should be left standing. As Milwaukeeans return to the River as a prime location to live, work, and play, the two piers left standing within will become increasingly visible. The third pier has an opportunity to be magical. It stands on the lot line of 3rd St., just north of the Sidney Hih building. Somehow the City needs to keep this pier to be reused within the structure of a new building or public space. The possibilities are limited only by […]

Richard Thompson

By John Hughes Richard Thompson’s new CD The Old Kit Bag advertises that it contains “unguents, fig leaves and tourniquets,” presumably for the listener’s soul. It actually delivers better than that; emollients for melancholy, curatives for the blues. It delivers nothing less than the pure healing joy of delectable music. Thompson has been breathing life into the decidedly uncool British folk tradition for 35 years, almost always to tremendous effect. This may be his best outing in all that time. He achieves this by stripping his sound down to the basics: his confident singing, in a voice which sounds as smokey and gladdening as a McEwan’s Scottish Ale tastes, and his guitar playing, which is spectacular. It is obvious here again that Richard Thompson is the real Slowhand. His dazzling guitar artistry is virtuosic, inventive, dancing, superior to the power blues of Eric Clapton because so much more nimble and versatile. He’s more fun to listen to than Clapton, and leaves you feeling exuberant. The songs are all richly detailed and thick with sound, and the backup singing of Judith Owen is a complementary highlight, but the guitar playing carries the day from beginning to end. At times it is so good that it hurts to listen. Richard Thompson, at his peak here, creates arresting beauty for your heart. SpinART Records

Three Steps to Natural Birth Control

By Stephanie Simmons You have made the commitment to be healthier, use more natural products and be more aware of your body. Are you or your partner using chemical contraceptives? If you’re looking for a more natural option, the information here might help to unveil the mystery of female fertility so you can dump the chemicals and follow the drumbeat of nature. This isn’t cocktail party conversation, but it is fascinating. If more people would talk about fertility awareness out loud, there would be less need for chemical birth control and fewer unintended pregnancies — especially in the teen years. Understanding the female fertility cycle is not complicated — really! Both females and males can read the signs of impending ovulation. The female cycle is not silent, it gives signs to let you know what is going on at all times. For the typical female, ovulation occurs approximately 2 weeks before you get your period. When the female body is getting ready to release an egg (which only lives for 12 to 24 hours), definite changes take place, due to the increase in estrogen which controls ovulation. You can chart these physical changes to see individual patterns, or simply use the following three steps to decide whether or not you should have intercourse during the fertile time. By avoiding intercourse or using a barrier method of birth control (like condoms) while the female partner is fertile, you avoid pregnancy! In other words: Do you want a baby? Or, not this month! It’s as easy as 1-2-3 One tell-tale sign that a woman’s body is ready to conceive is noticeably higher than normal amounts of clear discharge, which is actually cervical fluid. Cervical fluid travels from the cervix (which separates the vaginal canal and the uterus) in the uppermost part of the vagina down to the vaginal opening. Sperm need cervical fluid as a medium in which to travel to the egg, and as sustenance. They can live in the presence of cervical fluid for up to five days. Fertile female cervical fluid is mostly clear and stretchy, like raw egg white. When clear fluid is more than usually present and you introduce sperm, expect to achieve pregnancy. Another sign that a female is fertile is the cervix itself. In addition to producing fluid, it opens up slightly to allow the sperm to travel through the uterus and into the fallopian tubes where the grand prize, the egg, is waiting. A woman or her partner can reach up into her vaginal canal and feel her cervix. During the unfertile phase the cervix feels like the tip of the nose and is firm, low and closed. When a woman is about to ovulate her cervix feels soft, high and open. The third sign of female fertility is increased libido. This increase is usually very noticeable not only to the woman, but to her partner as well. It makes sense that nature makes us want sex most when we are physically capable of […]

L’auberge Espagnole

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Tim Clausen Hears Voices

By John Hughes Tim Clausen, 43, is sitting motionless in his darkened East Side home, concentrating. Within my view are several stacks of books, towers of videos and CDs, an elderly upright piano, a forest of plants, and this lean individual, listening with both ears. He is listening to the voices of deep pain, a network of desolation, on a CD which he has recorded and produced. The CD is entitled, The Voices of September 11: The Families, and that is just what it is. Without sound effects, mood music, or Hollywoodish voice-overs, the CD is simply an hour of brutally honest interviews with families who have survived the death of a loved one. Tim is the one interviewing them on the CD, probing openly, honestly, and gently, listening with a compassion indicated by his groans and appropriate chuckles. He has recorded over 80 hours of conversations with the bereaved, giving the CDs to the families he’s interviewed, as keepsakes he calls “Lifeworks legacy-interviews,” time capsules made “so kids can get to know their Dads through this.” He has distilled the 80 hours into one, for the rest of us, to hear, and contemplate and remember. A hundred anguished voices “I see the point of the airplane in my living room,” says the mother of one of the pilots whose plane smashed into the World Trade Center. “Repeatedly. I sought out a psychiatrist, because I keep seeing the fire in my living room. I never knew death was so bad. But there’s nothing I can do.” “We were hearing reports that they were pulling out live people from the rubble, but I didn’t want my husband down underneath there with a hundred broken bones, bleeding” says one widow. “So I went outside and went out to the top of the street, and just lost it. And I prayed to God, ‘Please tell me he’s with you, and not suffering down here terribly. Just give me a sign.’ And moments later, I looked up, and saw a shooting star. And this huge rush came over me and I thought, ‘Oh my God. He’s home. He’s with God now, and I need to accept that. I knew he wasn’t coming back.” The listening is harrowing, it revisits the horror of those events, now nearly two years old, but Tim is unflinching, in both the interviewing, and the listening with me. He’s looking straight into the horror. For the general populace, those events are beginning to recede into history, but for the bereaved, their loved ones are dead again today. Tim Clausen has extended a hand to a few of those many still grieving. A mentor sows the seeds of change Tim was born and raised in Oconomowoc, by his own admission “did extensive research and development with chemicals,” dropped acid daily for months on end, and, by the age of 16, found himself in a treatment center. There, he met the man who was to change his life, an Episcopal Bishop, Chandler […]